A senior official in Jerusalem has told Ha’aretz the Americans wanted to know if US made technology was onboard the gifted drone. Apparently, US embassy diplomats have already contacted Israel’s defense, foreign, and agriculture ministries, as well as the prime minister’s deputy national security advisor, after having read about the Agriculture Minister’s generosity in his rare bout with diplomacy.

The Americans believe a sophisticated, US made camera is installed on the Volcani drone, the kind that require a special application for US government permission should said camera be sold to a third-party. Needless to say, in the current political frost between US Democrats and Russian officials, and considering the economic sanctions against Russia, such an application would have ended up in a DC shredder.

So far, according to Ha’aretz, Jerusalem has told Washington the camera was removed from the drone (which was made in Spain). But now the Israeli defense ministry has been wondering just how many local security regulations the generous minister violated. Needless to say, he did not consult the defense apparatus before making his $52,000 gesture of friendship.

It should be noted in Minister Ariel’s defense that his ministry is in the midst of negotiating an $11 billion agricultural cooperation deal, so that from his point of view the drone was a small price to pay considering such enormous stakes.

As we mentioned yesterday, when the representatives from the Russian embassy showed up at the Rishon Lezion Volcani institute, they were handed the drone but not its operating system or remote control. The Volcani scientists insist they’d let go of those when they see the $52,000 increase in their operating budget, thank you very much.

An Israeli speaker’s talk at a London college campus scheduled for this week was canceled on Wednesday. Why? Because, according to the cancelation notice sent by the student union, “there had been controversy” when he spoke at the campus two years prior, and the hosting organization failed to disclose that when the room was booked for the talk.

After cries of suppression of speech and vehement protests, the university stepped in and “un”canceled the talk. Hen Mazzig’s talk at University College, London, was reinstated. It would take place, as scheduled, on Thursday evening, Oct. 27.

The response by the anti-Israel mob was swift and the attack was vicious. A protest was called. Outside the room where Mazzig was scheduled to speak, livid demonstrators screamed for murder and the end of Israel. “Intifada, Intifada!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” They barred the entrance to the talk while pummeling the doors and windows, leering malevolently. Two thugs yanked open a window, hurling themselves into the room, launching several students inside into panic attacks. A woman inside kept repeating: “This is like the Warsaw Ghetto!”

The prelude and the coda of this minuet reveals volumes about the campus wars being waged against anything Israel these days.

Let’s start at the beginning: Hen (pronounced Khen, with the throat-scraping sound most non-Israelis find unpronounceable) Mazzig is a 27 year old Israeli who completed his army service four years ago. Since that time Mazzig has been speaking to audiences, especially on U.S. college campuses, about Israel. Mazzig is an educator who wants non-Israelis to understand his tiny country and his fellow countrymen. He is soft-spoken with a recognizable, but comprehensible, Israeli accent.

When Mazzig first started speaking to college students back in 2013, he was shocked by the vitriol directed against Israel by some American college students, professors and community members. Even Jewish ones.

In 2013, Mazzig wrote an epic cri de coeur, calling on American Jews to “Wake Up!” He was horrified to learn that Israel’s enemies are not just the hostile Arab nations surrounding his tiny country. “It is also here in America, where a battle must be waged against prejudice and lies. I implore American Jews to do more.”

This time around Mazzig is more sanguine about the atmosphere on U.S. campuses. He told the JewishPress.com that he is “happy that I was able to bring my voice into the conversation, to help raise awareness.”

There is now ample funding to fight the scourge he urged Jewish leadership to recognize a few years back, the movement known as BDS, Mazzig told the JewisPress.com. But the recognition of BDS as a symptom of the underlying illness is still too attenuated, including by Jewish leadership. “BDS is only a symptom of the disease which is the same old hatred – anti-Semitism.”

That hatred of Jews and, by extension the Jewish state, is what fuels BDS and other symptoms is made clear by the response to Mazzig in London last night.

The original effort to shut down Thursday night’s speech was based on a “controversy” surrounding a talk he gave in 2014 at Kings College, London. But that controversy was one created solely by anti-Israel protesters, not by Mazzig. In fact, the video and public statement posted by the protesters reveal that disrupting Mazzig’s talk and the walkout were planned in advance. The protest was not about anything Mazzig said — it was about the fact that any former IDF soldier was allowed to speak on campus at all.

Again at Thursday night’s event the protest was fueled simply by anti-Israel animus. Pro-Israel female students were assaulted on their way to the event. Many who sought entrance to the speech were barred by the protesters, those who gained admittance were prevented from leaving without a choreographed police escort.

But here’s the rub: while the haters did their best to prevent him from speaking, they did so without realizing that in his message and in his essence, Mazzig is the ultimate slayer of untruths about Israel.

For one thing, Mazzig’s family hails from Tunisia and Iraq – he is one of those “brown bodies” people love to claim Israel oppresses. For another thing, Mazzig was an openly gay commander in the Israeli army, where being gay raises no eyebrows, let alone scaffolds. Next on the list: Mazzig served in the COGAT unit. COGAT works with the Palestinian Authority to coordinate activities in order to improve the lives of the Arabs living in the territories.

During his IDF service Mazzig focused on protecting everyone, “coordinating humanitarian aid, and tending to the needs of civilians” living in the territories, Jewish and Arab, he explained. Mazzig and his unit worked feverishly “in a special operation conducted in the middle of the night” to unite an Arab Gazan orphan with an uncle in Ramallah, so that the boy “would not be left alone on the streets of the Gaza Strip.”

And the title of Mazzig’s speech at UCL, back in 2014? “The Hope for Peace: Promoting Peace While in Uniform.”

When the thugs were pounding on the doors and windows and shouting that Mazzig is a “murderer,” they were, albeit unknowingly, attempting to silence a speaker who understands Israel in ways they really must prevent the world from learning about. Otherwise, anyone who is not automatically a hater will realize that the throngs of illiberal thugs attempting to block free speech are the real roadblocks to peace.

Speaking from London following the event, Mazzig told the JewishPress.com:

I was standing in the room, trying to calm the Jewish students, while the mob outside was banging on the doors, on the windows, and calling for intifada. I knew this was not normal, nobody should have to endure this.

But neither Mazzig nor his talk’s sponsor, the media watchdog group CAMERA, were deterred.

A kite fitted with a camera was spotted flying into Israel from northern Gaza on Sabbath morning, according to Israel’s Channel 2 television news.

IDF soldiers who spotted the primitive homemade unmanned aerial vehicle opened fire, prompting its unidentified operators to pull it back over the border and back into Gaza.

“During the morning hours, a kite with a camera was spotted as it crossed the border from Gaza into Israel,” said an IDF spokesperson. “IDF forces fired into the air, and the kite and its owners left the area.”

It is not yet known who was operating the primitive spy device, but the kite was pulled back into a vehicle just inside the border in Gaza, which then traveled in the direction of Beit Hanoun, military sources said.

Last week Gaza terrorists fired two rocket attacks at southern Israel, one exploding on a road in a residential area in the town of Sderot, and the second in an open area in the Eshkol Regional Council district.

Israeli Defense Forces retaliated in response to both attacks with air strikes and artillery fire aimed at terrorist targets in Gaza.

The makers of a Gaza TV candid camera show in honor of the month of Ramadan were wondering how would rank and file Gazans respond if they realized that there are a couple of Israelis standing and walking in their midst. The concept was funny enough, and the two actors, Chouikh and Abu Zubaydah, depicting the hapless Zionists were equipped with a visual aid, just in case their subjects didn’t get the idea from their mix of broken English and Arabic — they each had an unmistakable, blue and white Israeli flag printed on their shirts. And so, with the hidden camera rolling, the two brave actors showed up in different parts of Gaza City, in front of a variety of astonished local men of all ages.

The funniest reactions were those of irate Gazans who grabbed the provocative Israeli before them and started beating him up, and the canned laughter loved those scenes. Some of the violent responses immediately followed the appearance of the blue Star and David between two parallel lines; others emerged following an exchange with the actors, in a clothing store, on a soccer field, on the street in front of a warehouse. Each time, the actor under attack, occasionally under a mob attack, would start yelling, “It’s a hidden camera” and urged the crew members to save his life.

But there were less violent, and more introspective reactions, too, when the subject would enter a lengthy argument with the two actors over their proposal that he become Israeli, for instance, because Israel is a mighty superpower. Unaware of being on camera, several subjects stood up to declare their fealty to their nation and their faith, expressing their anger at the provocation.

In one exchange, early on, one of the actors tries to speak Hebrew to a subject, who is older and therefore versatile in the language. What develops is a strange dialogue between a faux Israeli who can barely finish a sentence in Hebrew, and a Gazan who speaks fluent Hebrew. The actor asks, “Ma shlomekh,” how are you, except in the wrong declension, using the female form. His subject forgives the mistake, answering, “Barukh Hashem,” as many Israelis would.

Despite the obvious rage many in the video, especially the younger ones, unleash at the mere sight of an Israeli avatars, it is clear that Israel, Israelis and their own identity in relation to the Jewish State are central to the culture and the communal psyche in Gaza. The fact that the video makers manage to treat the tension over the subject matter with humor, albeit lowbrow humor, suggests there may be more under the shallow surface of hatred and denunciations, including a longing for a time when the sound of Hebrew in the streets also represented prosperity, more personal safety and probably more humor.

Jerusalem (TPS) – The World Health Organization report in May warning of the “mental, physical, and environmental health” of Palestinian Authority Arabs under Israeli control is facing a wave of criticism from Israeli officials who are challenging the report’s accuracy and objectivity. The WHO conference also earned scrutiny from watchdog groups who pointed out that a Palestinian Authority report submitted to the UN health organization is riddled with false captions to photos accusing Israel of wrongdoing.

“Instead of compiling a professional and objective report, the WHO is being used by those whose only interest is to harm the State of Israel,” said Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN. “They are doing so even when this means that they are creating alternative reality and disseminating vicious lies.”

That type of alternate reality was depicted in a report submitted to WHO by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in which several photographs contained captions with false descriptions, many of which were detailed in a post by the watchdog organization CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America).

The Palestinian Authority report also speculated on outlandish accusations against Israel, suggesting Israel freezes the bodies of Arab terrorists in order to obscure “whether the deceased individual’s organs have been stolen.” The Palestinian Authority health ministry also wondered – citing a “widespread belief among Palestinians” and a report in the former Soviet mouthpiece Pravda – whether “Israel has injected prisoners with carcinogenic viruses.”

In a section where the PA Ministry of Health accuses Israel of attacking Palestinian Authority medical staff and hospitals, the report includes a photograph of an Israeli soldier in an ambulance. The caption describes the image as “Israeli occupation soldiers search the interior of a Palestinian ambulance.” However, the image – actually of an IDF ambulance – is carefully cropped to exclude the Star of David icon as much as possible. Only the top pinpoint of the Jewish symbol is exposed at the bottom of the photograph, revealing the ambulance to be Israeli.

The significance of the photograph and its false caption relates to its possible influence in the crafting of WHO’s report, which was proposed by the Kuwaiti delegation on behalf of the Arab Group and the Palestinian Authority. The report’s final version calls for the Director-General to make recommendations for improving health conditions of Palestinian Palestinian Authority Arabs with focus on a number of areas including “incidents of delay or denial of ambulance service.”

There were several other instances in which the PA’s Ministry of Health included photographs with fallacious captions, as documented in the CAMERA report and the pro-Israel blog Isreallycool.

The caption in one picture describes a scenario in which “settlers attack a Palestinian child while being observed by Israeli occupation forces.” However, in the photograph, which was taken by a photographer for Agence France Presse and belongs to Getty Images, it is actually an Israeli child being pulled by Israeli security forces from Jewish residents of the Samarian outpost of Havat Gilad. There are no Arabs in the picture.

In another instance, a fictional image of a potential strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by an Israeli M-15 was described in the report as a photograph of an Israeli aerial attack on Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The mountainous background of the image, created by The Aviationist blog’s Al Clark, depicts a geographic region that contrasts with the flatlands of the Gaza Strip.

Neither the World Health Organization nor the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health returned TPS’s requests for comment on the apparently false information in the Palestinian Authority report. Ambassador Danon, for his part, remains hopeful and committed to fighting false charges by the Palestinian Authority and others in international organizations like WHO and the UN.

The IDF sealed up an abandoned apartment in Hebron today, while foreign left-wing activists and Arabs, with apparently nothing better to do with their time stood around filming the soldiers do their job.

The IDF sealed up this particular abandoned apartment as Arabs were sneaking inside and using it to throw firebombs onto the Jewish owned homes in the Beit Hadassah neighborhood next door, according to a Tazpit report.

Hebron’s Jewish residents also report that European leftists have also been trying to illegally settle inside the abandoned buildings.

But firebombs thrown at Jewish homes simply isn’t enough to get an anti-Israel anarchist out of bed in the morning with his or her camera.

As it happens, one of the Arab-thrown firebombs missed its target two weeks ago, and almost burned down an Arab-owned building, but the fire department was able to put out the blaze in time.

But again, Arabs firebombing Arabs also isn’t enough to get a foreign activist out of bed to film the event.

Apparently only the IDF sealing up a location used for terror attacks will get their ire up.

Friday’s altercation at the settlement of Adei Ad is raising questions as to what actually happened.

According to Settler sources, the Arabs from Turmus Aya brought US Consulate officials close to the entrance to Adei Ad and within the community’s security zone, which begins 50 meters from the community.

The settlers say the Arabs from Turmus Aya are fully aware that they are only allowed into the 50 meter security zone with IDF approval and coordination.

It is definitely known that US Consulate officials did not coordinate their visit with the IDF or Israeli authorities.

The settlers say the Arabs brought the US officials to that point as part of a provocation.

Adei Ad residents who initially saw the vehicles approaching assumed they were Arab vehicles that were seconds away from entering the outpost.

The residents came out and a verbal altercation began with the Arabs who were accompanying the US Consulate officials.

The Israelis claims that during the verbal altercation, two US Consulate security personnel got out of the car and pulled out weapons, specifically a pistol and an M-16 rifle.

If they pulled out guns as the residents of Adei Ad claim, the US personnel perhaps quickly realized their major diplomatic blunder.

At that point, everyone agrees, the US personnel got back into their cars, didn’t wait for the army to show up, and sped off.

They claim the settlers stoned their vehicles.

The US government denies its personnel pulled out any weapons and pointed them at the Israelis.

The most obvious question is, where is the video tape?

The US said they offered video evidence of the event to the Israeli authorities.

But premeditated Arab provocations against settlers, such as this one, are never perpetrated without multiple Arab and left-wing video cameras rolling.

That the Arabs and the leftwing groups haven’t yet released any video to the public, even a heavily edited version, as they often do, is unusual, surprising and even suspicious.

We’re waiting for the video before drawing any conclusions as to what really happened.